Great Reads

Ok, I know I'm behind on this. I will have another update shortly on a hike I did with my dad and family up at Standing Stone in Pike County, but right now I wanted to quickly talk about three of my favorite books. All three of these books deal with the outdoors although in different ways. Maybe you've read one or more of these and maybe you'll be inspired to go check them out. Or if you're nice enough maybe I'll even let you borrow one of them!

First up is a great look at the Applachian Trail from a guy who actually tried to thru-hike the entire trail. Bill Bryson's "A Walk In The Woods" is easily one of the funniest non-fiction books I've ever read. A hilarious yet sobering tale of one man's quest to tackle the AT from Georgia to Maine with his overweight and out-of-shape friend. Tons of funny stories and anecdotes throughout and a lot of really good and interesting information about the towns, state parks, and other bits of Americana along the trail. Bonus points for the Danielsville shout-out.





Next up is Colin Fletcher's "The Complete Walker". I have volume 3, though I think he's up to volume 4 already. This is a backpacker's ultimate guide to gear, sprinkled with Fletcher's dry British wit and wisdom. He has a very funny and sarcastic writing style. As good as the gear reviews and suggestions are, I absolutely love the opening chapter about why he has the burning need to walk and to get away from all the modern day distractions. A great read if you're wondering what to take along on a hiking / backpacking / camping trip.





Finally, we come to a great little guide for the PA section of the Appalachain Trail. It's actually one of a series of books on the Appalachian Trail - not the official AT books sold by the AMC, but rather a smaller very affordable set. The series is called "Exploring the Applachian Trail: Hikes in the...". This one is "Hikes in the Mid-Atlantic States". It covers the entire section of the AT in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. There are four other books in the series: Northern New England, Southern New England, The Virginias, and Southern Appalachians. This guide is small, fits into your backpack, and divides the section of the trail covered into a series of day hikes. It gives complete descriptions of everything you will see along the way, small topo maps (at 1:100000 scale) with the trail and landmarks clearly marked, cool little sidebars about interesting things in the area, and a great guide to hiking and backpacking the trail. I use this as my de-facto guide to the AT. Pick up a copy and pack it along - you should be able to get used copies for under $12.

Clothing Makes The Man

Well in this case, socks do. I had been reading about the "proper" footwear for hiking for years but only recently have I decided to try it out. I'm talking about two pair of socks - a pair of polypropylene or silk liners followed by an outer sock of wool, acrylic, etc. I picked up two pair of poly liners for $6, and had already purchased a pair of good mid-weight wool hiking socks at the Scout shop. The Pinnacle hike I recently blogged about was the first time I wore this combination and voila - no blisters!

However the true beauty of this setup really made itself known on my trip this past weekend to Hickory Run. I decided, foolishly I might add, to not bring my waterproof hiking boots along on the trip, since the trails we were planning on doing were not real strenuous. I forgot to take into account the fact that it had just rained two days before, and quite heavy too. Every trail we attempted had some sort of water to cross. I had not one but BOTH of my feet submerged - on two separate trails too - up to the ankle. Foot immediately got cold and wet but within probably 5 minutes, my foot was dry. The bottom of my jeans were still wet three hours later, but the socks were nice and dry. Three cheers for moisture wicking! I did notice the socks were just the slightest bit damp when I took them off in the tent later that night, but nothing like the way cotton socks get wet and then proceed to transfer that misery to your feet for pretty much the rest of the day.

I will never... repeat - NEVER... wear cotton socks in the outdoors again. NEVER AGAIN!

Standing On Top Of The World

Ok, maybe not the top of the world. But about as close as you can get in a 50 mile radius. Two weekends ago I went with a bunch of my good hiking friends from the Cub Scout pack up to the Pinnacle on the Appalachian Trail. It was my first time up there. I think the rest of the group were also hiking it the first time. We decided to walk up from the Hawk Mountain side of the trail - it was approximately 5.5 miles in - rather than hit the side trail which was shorter but much steeper. We took 895 out to 443 then swung up Hawk Mountain road - turn left onto Pine Swamp road and the game lands parking lot is up about a mile and a half on the left. There was a bit of confusion because there are several parking lots and we weren't sure which one was the correct one. We finally settled on the one with all the signs. We got out and waited for the rest of our party to arrive. It was a beautiful morning - not as cold as I thought it might be but just right for a long hike. Looking at the signs it wasn't immediately obvious that we were at the AT - usually there are wooden AT signs but none here. I later found out that it was a side trail and the AT north section splits off about a mile up.

We got going on the side trail and hooked up with the AT a little further up - it meets up on the right. The trail was a pretty good climb for about half of it, turning east and then southeast, and then levelling off for a bit. It did not get real rocky, as I've come to expect with the PA sections of the AT, until it levelled off up top. By the time we were within a half mile of the outlook, it was very rocky and typical of the sections around the Lehigh Valley. There were a bunch of side trails meeting up with the main trail along the way - perhaps one day I'll get around to trying some of those out.

It took us about two hours to get up to the outlook - right before you get to the rock ledges there is a huge cairn - the custom is you have to put a rock on the pile. We opted to do that as we were leaving. We got to the edge of the southern most part and our jaws dropped. The view was simply amazing. It was a nice clear day and we were quickly able to identify route 78 going over South mountain, the PP&L building in downtown Allentown, the Martin Tower in Bethlehem, Wind Gap, Delaware Water Gap, Little Gap, Lehigh Gap, and Bake Oven Knob. The pictures below give you a little taste of it, but it really must be experienced from up top. There were a lot of buzzards and a hawk or two also circling around pretty frequently. As we were sitting up there I turned to my right and saw about 15 of them just floating around on the updrafts. I quickly changed lenses and tried to get a better shot of the birds.

We sat around for a bit enjoying the view, taking photos, and grabbing a quick bit of lunch. A few of us also decided to check out the cave underneath a few of the larger and flatter rocks. I had read that the cave is home to more than a few copperheads but luckily on that day we saw nothing reptilian - just a bunch of beer cans and other assorted trash. The cave was pretty cool - it went back about 100 feet then turned to a left and right passage at the end. To the right was a very low ceiling and would have required crawling, but the left passage was somewhat walkable for a few feet - I opted not to go back in any further but did look back with my flashlight and saw the ceiling also start to get lower, and then a pretty deep dropoff into blackness. Might be worth exploring a little more at some point.

We spent about an hour up top total - honestly I could have spent the entire day but it was another two hours back down and about an hour's ride home. I figured the rest of the family would be getting antsy so we decided to head back down. The walk down started to wear on my feet and by the time we were about a mile away from the trailhead my feet were good and sore. We got to the trailhead about 5 hours exactly from when we started. A very long hike - for those of us not in tip-top hiking shape anyway - but a very worthwhile one. If you have a half a day or so available, by all means, give this one a try. You won't be disappointed.

And yes, I slept like a baby that night.



FLATTER AND LESS ROCKY THAN YOU'D EXPECT


THE CAIRN


AMAZING VIEW


"WISH YOU WERE HERE"


ON THE LEDGE HEADING INTO THE CAVE


FLYING HIGH AGAIN

Full set of photos here: Pinnacle_20101003.

Technical Difficulties

You know, working in the technology industry, I just sort of expect things to work. And when they don't work I expect to be able to sit down and fix them fairly quickly. Not this time - I've been having issues uploading so that's why the missing photo on the last post. I'm in the midst of doing several virus scans in an attempt to rid my laptop of its electronic West Nile Virus. As soon as I have this fixed I'll get some photos up here to go along with my rambling.

Roots

I've been trying to faithfully do a smaller hike every Saturday morning. The family usually sleeps in a little later on Saturdays so that gives me a chance to get up and get a nice sunrise hike in and still get home in time to enjoy breakfast and coffee with my wife and the kids. This past Saturday I had a show with my band so time was a little short. I had planned on doing the Delps trail for a conditioning workout but that's usually a 2 hour affair. Well, an hour and a half up and down but once I hit the AT I like to walk in a bit as long as I'm up there.

Anyway, I was short on time so I decided to head up to Little Gap and hike the North part of the AT. This is a trail I used to hike a lot when I was a teenager and in my early 20's. It was close, it was easy and it had great views. I haven't hike there regularly in a while though. I'm not sure why I haven't, I just have been hiking other places.

I started into the woods and hit the usual swampiness along the first quarter mile of trail before the boulders and climb begin. A few carefully chosen steps kept my feet mostly dry. I made my way up to the rocks and climbed up. I got up to the first lookout and felt a familiar awe as I looked north over the Aquashicola creek valley and into Palmerton. I sat up there by myself, enjoying the serenity and view for probably close to 15 minutes, when I saw a young couple come hiking up. The girl asked me "is this Weathering Knob?" Sadly, I wasn't sure - I told her I didn't know, but I didn't think it was. Of course when I got home I checked my AT book and sure enough it WAS Weathering Knob. Guess I don't know quite as much about the AT as I thought I did.

Anyway - it was nice to return to a familiar place from my youth. I walked in a bit further, and ended up coming down the switchback road they cut in to go up to the cell tower. Which I have to add, I do not like the re-routing of the trail west of the cell tower. I used to enjoy going around the top of the cell tower and back into the woods, but I suppose the tower decided they wanted pesky hikers off their land so the trail was re-routed.

All in all it was a beautiful day and a nice little hike to take me back to the place I first fell in love with the AT.

GPS Coords: 40.80597, -75.53476 (north trailhead)

Hiking The Katellen Trail

Ok, I'm going to try to start regularly posting on this thing and see how it goes.

So today I hiked up the Katellen trail - which is a side trail to the Appalachian Trail between Smith Gap and Wind Gap in the Eastern PA region for those of you out of the area. I love the AT. I have not done a lot of it, but I am fascinated with the idea of it, and the idea that you could technically (and many have) walk from Georgia to Maine. That is just awesome. Anyway, so I tend to hike the sections of the AT around my house fairly often. These sections are Little Gap, Smith Gap, and Wind Gap. About two years ago I discovered the Delps Trail, which is another side trail leading up to the AT. I'm also into the idea of these side trails - the fact that you can start at ground level and climb up the mountain and hook up with the trail is pretty cool. Anyway - so I did Delps probably a half dozen times or so in the last year. It's a great conditioning workout. I love it.

But today it was time to try the Katellen trail. I had read about it but never tried it until today. About two weeks ago we were coming back from watching the LV marathon and I decided to try to find the parking lot to the gamelands. I found it, marked it in my GPS and made my plans to come out and hike the trail today. I got started a little later than I normally like (I'm an early morning hiker by trade - I love the silence and peacefulness you only seem to get at that time of day) but it ended up being a great hike. The trail itself was more gradual than Delps was. Still a good climb (the GPS showed about 680' climb in elevation) but it was not the harsh vertical that Delps is. From a workout standpoint, somewhat of a disappointment. But from a "take the rest of the family or friends I know who like to hike" standpoint - it was good. I saw a ton of birds and chipmunks. And got to see the Leroy Smith shelter on the way up. Plus there are a bunch of really cool looking tent sites just outside the shelter on the way up. I'm now thinking about a backpacking overnight excursion.

When you get to the top, the power line cuts through, so there is an open swath of the top of the mountain for a little bit - it was covered with goldenrod and other late summer scrub. The AT then picks up with the familiar white blazes with a sign - 15 miles south to Little gap, 14.5 miles north to the Kirkridge shelter. I walked south for about 1/4 mile and found this cool old mountain road path which went north towards the Kunkletown side of the mountain. Walked for about 1/2 mile and then turned around because it was getting to be time to head home. Looks like an awesome trail to walk with the kids and friends once the leaves are all turned and fall is in full swing.

All in all it was a good trail. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate the tente sites into a backpacking trip where I can do a night or two out - I've been dying to do that and if I do, I will chronicle it here. I'll definitely be hiking Katellen again - possibly as soon as next Saturday.